Nuffield Health Fitness & Wellbeing Centre

This place has amazing facilities:
A nice lounge (with a breakfast bar for free breakfast* after you work out!)
Pool with a sauna and a steam room
Huge rooms for classes
Loads of machines for working out
Free towels*
Dedicated spin room
Everything is bright and clean… and they must have a decent air-​conditioning system, as it doesn’t smell despite so many people working out! There are also really friendly staff (and really, really friendly sales staff!!)
The only bad part is the price! I went to look around, and noticed that they wouldn’t tell me how expensive it was until I had looked around at the gorgeous facilities. I suppose this wows most people into joining… but for me £73 a month for 6 months, or £68 a month for 12 months is just too pricey. *sigh*
*I said ‘free’ towels and breakfast… you’d have to make use of this gym a lot to make it worth the price!

I’m not really one for paying to make myself push myself and sweat. However luck was on my side and I won week of personal training in a charity raffle donated by the trainer himself. You can imagine my face as I accepted my prize (I was hoping for the Kindle!)
I’ve always loved playing sports, tennis, squash, lacrosse etc but to me that’s not hard work, it’s the keeping in shape and staying fit I’ve always hated! Personally I don’t see the point in running unless I’m being chased or for the bus! So with this prize I thought I’d turn a new leaf and embrace the training that waited for me.
Enough about me back to the review. The trainer Conor is a really lovely chap, he does tailor made fitness classes for individuals and small groups. But he also invited me to do a boxing class he runs at the Nuffield gym in Bloomsbury. It was AWESOME! The class was really hard work but fun way to do a work out. Major sweat and lots of burning but really worth it. Unfortunately I was only a guest as you have to be a member of the gym to do the classes. Seriously considering joining the gym for the class.
As for the gym it’s the nicest one I’ve ever been into. Bright and clean like you would hope and only a faint smell of chlorine from the pool. No mouldy smell and the changing rooms were lush with all the essentials provided, including complementary towels and good hairdryers!
I haven’t done a complete u-​turn but I’m not so anti gyms and fitness now!

As gyms go, Cannons in Bloomsbury is fairly decent. There is a good selection of machines, which rarely fill up. The staff are friendly, and seemingly quite determined to encourage you to have all sorts of fitness assessments and reviews. The swimming pool is well designed and relaxing, with a parents and kids session on a Sunday morning. There is also a beauty treatment centre on site, offering small discounts to fitness club members.
My one complaint about Cannons would be that, because it is underground, you can’t watch the world go by as you work out. This feels fairly oppressive during the summer, but in the winter is hardly noticeable. The best times to use the gym are, between 10 and 12 in the morning and 2 to 5 in the afternoons.